My Shower at Hemingway's
by Dunnage41
Summary: A motel shower reminds Henry of another time and place.


Over the thrumming of the water Henry spoke.

"The first hot shower I ever had was in 1929 in Paris, and it was courtesy of Ernest Hemingway."

He turned off the water and stepped out, dripping onto the linoleum, the door cracked open to let the steam out.

"Oh dear. No towels," he said absently.

Detective Jo Martinez flung the bathroom door open, unfazed by the sight of a naked and dripping chief medical examiner – she'd seen him in that position many times.

"What do you mean, no towels. And what do you mean, 'Ernest Hemingway'?" she demanded.

Mike Hansen swung his feet off the vivid nylon bedspread and stretched as he stood. "No towels, huh," he said. He shrugged. "You can air-dry, right, Doc?"

"Wait here," Jo snapped. She snatched her coat off the bed and strode out, slamming the flimsy door behind her.

Henry sat down on the toilet.

"Stupid conference," Hansen grumbled. "Stupid police-issued rental car. Stupid axle. Stupid snow."

Henry let the complaints slide over him. He knew how much Hansen missed Karen and the children.

"In the nineteen-twenties, I lived in Paris," he said. "I was in a social circle that included Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway."

Hansen held up a finger. "Wait a sec, Doc." After a grumbling at the doorknob, Jo succeeded in unlocking the door and burst in, holding a frayed square of terrycloth.

"One towel," she announced, and tossed it underhanded to Henry, who caught it with his left hand.

"Thank you, Jo," he said, and shook it open. Hansen snorted.

"That's a fucking Kleenex," he said.

"Kleenex or not, it's an improvement," Henry said with dignity, and wrapped it around his waist.

"In the nineteen-twenties, I lived in Paris," he repeated. "I was in a social circle that included Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway."

"Get _out,_ " Jo said. "You were not."

Henry cocked an eyebrow. Jo made a "go on" motion with her hand.

"Hemingway knew a very wealthy couple who were on holiday in the South of France, maybe the Riviera, for several months, and he was living in their flat keeping an eye on things.

"Now Ernest was all sorts of things – but he was also a responsible flat-sitter. He never had people over, never brought women there, nothing. All his drinking and womanizing and pontificating took place elsewhere, never in the flat.

"One afternoon he and I were alone in a café and he stood up very suddenly. 'Come on,' he said, 'I'm going to give you a treat.'

"Well, that could have meant anything, but I followed him, and we took the Metro to the very upscale arondissement where the flat was and he let me in. 'Follow me,' he said, and I did, to the enormous bathroom with a shower stall in one corner.

"He bent over and fiddled with the taps, then motioned me over. 'Ever had a hot shower before?' He was grinning.

" 'Of course not,' I said.

" 'Stick your hand in there,' he said, and I did, and hot water was pouring from the shower head."

"Wait a minute," Jo said. "What do you mean, 'Of course not'?"

Henry crossed the small room and reached into his suitcase, pulling out a New York Police Department sweat suit. He stepped into the pants and pulled the sweatshirt over his head before continuing.

"Until the mid-1800s, bathing was a matter of heating water in a pot over the fire or on the stove, then pouring it into a washtub, which was usually about the size of a, well, the size of a washtub. One folded oneself in half and sat down in it, with one's legs and arms hanging over the sides. The water covered one's bottom and a few inches north and south. One soaped and washed oneself, then stood up and washed the part that had been in the water. Then one climbed out and toweled off and dressed before the fire.

"By the time I was born, in 1779, one typically bathed once or twice a month. By about 1830, a lot of private homes had an enclosed stall with a shower head. Rainwater was collected in a reservoir on the roof and there were a couple of sieve-like filters to keep anything but water from coming out the shower head, and a flap like an epiglottis. One pulled a chain that had a ring on the end, then hooked the ring onto a hook on the wall to keep the water coming out while one bathed. By then, one was typically bathing once a week.

"By the nineteen-twenties, some homes had boilers that allowed for hot and cold running water, but only for baths in bathtubs. We hadn't quite connected all the dots.

"It was only in the mid-twenties that a very few, very wealthy families began to have a system of boilers and pipes that allowed for brief hot showers.

"Thus it was that the first hot shower I ever had, came courtesy of young Ernest Hemingway, in Paris, on a gray and chilly afternoon in 1929." Henry grinned and sank onto the floor, his back against the thin paneled wall and his legs stretched out.

He and Hansen looked over at Jo Martinez. She had been sitting on the edge of one of the beds but was now crumpled over in a heap. Henry leapt to his feet and strode over to her. Just as he reached her, she emitted a faint snore.

Henry looked at Hansen. Hansen looked at Henry.

"It seems that my shower at Hemingway's will have to remain our secret."


End file.
